“She had bought the wool, so—I’d say maybe two-thousand and six or
seven-hundred yen.” Soeda remembered that he had once mistaken a five-
thousand yen note for a thousand yen note when he was climbing out of a
taxi in the dark, and handed it to the driver. It had happened soon after five-
thousand yen notes came into circulation. The driver had given him the
change appropriate for a thousand yen note, and of course there had been
no reason for Soeda to be at all suspicious of the man, no reason for him to
look him over to see whether or not he had known that it was a five-
thousand yen note. Soeda was inclined to think that at the time the driver
hadn’t noticed either, just as he himself had not.
He had told Ikuko about the five-thousand yen note at the time, but he
didn’t mention it now.
“Yuko hasn’t ever had anything stolen from her before, has she?”
“When you say stolen—you mean, has she ever had anything of hers
taken by someone?” Ikuko rephrased the question. “I wonder . . . something
of Yuko’s. . . . No, I can’t think of anything. Maybe she hasn’t.”
They could tell by Yuko’s hurried footsteps that she had returned.
“I got a good look at them,” she said, coming into the sitting room. “It’s
not quite as exact as father said, but it is odd.”
“What isn’t exact?”
“The bare trees and the trees with leaves on them aren’t really so clearly
divided—they don’t just split halfway up the path. There are still a few
leaves on some of the trees at the bottom, and there are some at the top that
have lost most of theirs.”
“You checked every tree.”
“Yes. The moon is out, and I could even see a few stars.” Yuko looked
Soeda straight in the face. “Father, have you heard about the purse?”
“I have.”
